Absolutely remarkable

To say that the new base building at Queenstown’s Remarkables Ski Field was ‘highly anticipated’ is somewhat of an understatement. With a $20 million price tag, part of a $45 million upgrade, the new building is a game changer. Now enjoying a bumper season, the field’s new café and restaurant have helped shape a significant change in how visitors enjoy their overall experience.

It’s a good result for both the local industry and the greater region, but one not without its challenges since construction first started back in 2013. With intense weather conditions, a remote location and a multifaceted development everything went down to the final minute to get the project completed.

The final outcome is a truly remarkable building. The lower level provides rentals, retail shopping, ticketing and guest services and the upper level offers a massive dining area. Here there’s space for seating 700 people inside, with an additional 500 out on the three-sided wraparound heated deck.

The change in culinary offering is marked and Jennifer Graham, the General Manager of Food & Beverage for NZ Ski, believes the new kitchen equipment has “changed the entire dynamic of the café area”.

“We wanted to do something that hasn’t been done before in the ski area space in New Zealand,” says Jennifer.

This speed of service is an operational reality for any ski field. “Everyone wants to be out skiing, nobody wants to be queuing or waiting for their food to arrive. When feeding quickly from a small space we had to maximise the efficiencies – and I think we’ve really done that,” says Jennifer. “We wanted the chargrill and the flat grill to provide the power and versatility to the process – to push out quality food quickly.”

“The improvement is huge,” she says. “Before it was mostly grab and go stuff – pies and fries. Now our biggest sellers are gourmet steak sandwiches, green chicken curries, hearty meals that provide more substance to our skiers. We’re doing stew, we’re doing sushi, we’re offering so much more and it’s changed the dynamic of the entire place.”

The Remarkables is undoubtedly one of the premier southern hemisphere ski destinations. With this reputation and attendant popularity comes the need to deliver the goods each and every time.

Serving a huge number of diners with assured speed and quality meant not only careful scoping of the kitchen equipment’s power and adaptability but also establishing how, in the small space, the team could work with, it, moving quickly and efficiently. The Waldorf range was chosen as, with the low back configuration, it worked well in the island suite design.

From this range six HPO fryers, a Filtamax filtration system, a target top and a 120-litre bratt pan with electric tilt were chosen. A 1200mm chargrill, 4 burner cooktop and dedicated 1200mm electric griddle with refrigerated base covered every other need the busy and bustling kitchen required. “Moffat, Southern Hospitality, Project Mechanical, Project Stainless and FPG – we all worked well together to help ensure the entire space came together well,” says Southern Hospitality’s Mark Latham.